Tania Hopper, Director of Education
>> The Centre for Professional Practice welcomes students from a wide variety of organisations.

>> To give you an indication we have people from administration, from Human Resources, the voluntary sector, teaching, as well as health professionals.

>> Studying programmes with the Centre for Professional Practice gives students the platform to gain academic validation and accreditation for the skills and knowledge and experience that they've amassed in the workplace, and also allows them to view their profession from a wider perspective.

>> Put simply, it allows individuals to broaden their academic and professional expertise whilst gaining a recognised qualification.

Debbie Reed, Head of Centre
>> The Professional Practice programmes, because they're built on a hub and spoke model, this will permit individuals who've got a variety of aspirations to select from across the University's vast catalogue.

>> Programmes of study that are going to build into a robust course that's going to stretch them while they're achieving their undergraduate qualification or their postgraduate qualification. And that programme, that course that they do, is going to be tailored to meet their own individual needs.

Tania Hopper, Director of Education
>> There are core modules which are learning and development, evidence-based practice, interprofessional working and research skills, and then our students get to choose from the optional modules that are available.

Dr Claire Parkin, Programme Director
>> Many of the modules are subject-specific to the programme of study study and they may be something like advancing dental practice or resource management in primary care. 

>> One module in particular which is a core module is evidence-based practice and this module is particularly relevant to the health care professions.

>> This module teaches our participants how to identify an area of their practice, how to search for evidence for that area of practice to analyse an appraised at evidence and apply it back to their workplace.

>> This module really encourages lifelong questioning skills and encourages each participant thoroughly interrogate their practice so that when they go back to deliver their clinical practice to their clients - their patients - they can take a gold standard approach.

Debbie Reed, Head of Centre
>> All our programme directors meet with the students that apply to do the programme and get a sense of where they want to be in the direction they want to travel in terms of their career.

>> They then work with the student at the start and throughout the rest of the course to ensure that that student is selecting programmes and modern modules from across the University catalogue, which is across humanities or across science or across social science. And the modules within that catalogue actually join together to create something that is bespoke and enabling for the participant.

>> We also provide collaborative programmes, and that's provision that we work with other organisations external to the University, that enable that organisation or that employer to actually focus on some of the strategic needs that they have and build their own programmes.

>> We deliver that with the organisation and with those employers or they deliver it on their own and we actually carry out the quality assurance and the checks that are required to reassure people about the high quality of education and training that's going on beyond the University.

Tania Hopper, Director of Education
>> Students who study at the Center for Professional Practice, even though that study is part-time, and even though they study with us at the weekends, they have access to all the facilities.

>> So, the library, the student learning advisory service, and also they have really good interaction with us as tutors to support them through that process.

Debbie Reed, Head of Centre
>> You can see a student by the time they've completed their programme that they've gained confidence incredibly. They've moved from, often being quite shy, in terms of being able to portray and to actually be critical and understanding what critical means. So critical in terms of positive criticism as well as negative criticism and how to deliver that. And you see them going from lack of understanding to slowly developing the confidence and doing that almost automatically by the time that they finish at the end.

>> And that's really reassuring for my colleagues and myself and we're delighted and it would be great if we could get other students to come in and participate, and encourage and support them to do the same.